


This Spark Of Black That I Seem To Love

by sweetNsimple



Series: "Morally and Legally Unacceptable Histories" ~ Nanao-chan [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clueless!Tony, Dark!Steve, Demented Things Happen, Extreme Violence Towards Women, M/M, Murder, Original Character Death(s), Serial Killer!Steve, and then sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 01:28:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1326679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This is not the way into my heart, into my head/ Into my brain, into none of the above/ This is just the way of unleashing the feelings deep inside of me/ This spark of black that I seem to love" ~ Simon Curtis's "Flesh"</p><p>There's a woman in his studio and Tony doesn't even know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Spark Of Black That I Seem To Love

There's a woman in his studio and Tony doesn't even know.

 

Not that it's Tony's fault – he gifted Steve with the studio, his exact words being, “For when you, you know, get sick and tired of me and need a break.” And he'd offered a nice, plastic smile, as if he knew there was a joke in there somewhere that he needed to laugh at but he had never really found out just where.

 

So Steve uses the studio as infrequently as possible, and usually for just a few hours at a time. Before he even leaves for it, he makes sure that Tony feels ravaged and bruised by how much and just how _hard_ Steve loves him. It simply isn't right that his lover (his _mate_ , growls his reptile brain, that voice and presence that followed him out of the ice, that had kept him company through the decades while he had waited to die or be found with varying degree of hope for one over the other) feel that Steve could ever get sick or tired of him.

 

And, okay, honesty here – Steve does get angry, so very angry, and sometimes upset at Tony. Because Tony is so very  _Tony_ , and Tony is unbearable, childish, arrogant, temperamental, loud, and so many other unfavorable things that makes Steve just want to wrap his hands around his bronze throat and  _squeeze_ till he has some peace and quiet.

 

So Steve does make a habit of going for walks instead of murdering his most special person, but he thinks that it's still preferable to go to the park instead of the studio. Tony purposely set the studio up as a haven for Steve, so Steve doesn't use it as a haven. Tony doesn't, not yet, anyway, own Central Park. 

 

The thing about the studio, however, is that Tony  _planned_ for Steve to use it to get away from him. He had purchased it, the entire building, as a matter of fact, and given it to Steve. It had been scraped out not too long ago before being put up for sale with its many, various-sized rooms, some of them walk-ins and others with viewing windows. There  has a wrought iron fence and gate that  surrounds the brick building with a small, barren garden in the back facing the East River. Very homey and definitely enjoyable. It  makes Steve almost itch to use and fix up and make into something new. 

 

He had thought about it at first, how to use it without using it against Tony. He'd even started looking into maybe setting it up as an apartment building and renting out rooms.

 

(His reptile brain had hissed  _No_ , and Steve had listened because this  is the voice that had talked to him during seventy years of cold and loneliness and madness.  _Use it for THEM_ .)

 

_THEM_ , or  _THEY_ , were the women.

 

They certainly hadn't liked him before the serum, but they walk quite willingly by his side nowadays, right into his studio. 

 

God, he hate s them. But he  gives them the benefit of the doubt before he ask s them in. Just test ing them without them knowing they  are being tested –

 

“ _I used to be a scrawny little thing, you know. You probably wouldn't have liked me then.”_

 

_Wait for it._

 

_There, the smile that said they aren't thinking about him_ then _, but only see him_ now _, the glazed, cow-dim stare and licked-slick lips curving up._

 

_Wait for the lie._

 

_The words vary, but the lie never changes._

 

“ _If you were anything like you are now, I bet I would have.”_

 

But they wouldn't have. He knows, he can see it in the way they tilt towards him, seeing him without seeing _him_.

 

Before the ice (before his reptile brain had given him someone to talk to, someone to help walk him through his mind and thoughts till he really understood who he was and what he was capable of), he never would have thought of hurting a dame.

 

After it, though... Well.

 

It's not like they don't deserve it.

 

So.

 

There's a woman in his studio, and Tony doesn't even know.

 

That's fine, though. Tony doesn't need to know. Tony doesn't _ever_ need to know. He might find out one day, maybe, most likely, but Steve is never going to tell him.

 

Because Steve loves Tony something fierce and unnatural. No matter how often Tony drives him up the walls, he doesn't ever want to snuff out that light, that fire. That Devil-Fears-Me grin, those dark, mischievous eyes, they are most alive when Tony is, well, alive.

 

(His reptile brain tells him, though, that it would be very easy for him as Captain America, the leader of his team, to put an end to the threat of discovery. Tony is his mate, Steve will kill and maim and torture for him, but self-preservation dangles above loyalty and love. He's suffered enough, suffered the cold and agony of being cold – he won't be caged again.)

 

“You know, I reverted back to my old self last year,” Steve tells the dame. He's in one of the smaller studio rooms, walls painted a nice eggshell blue with a watercolor paper sheet spread over the wall opposite the door. She's spread out on the floor, bound and knotted nicely for his purposes with her arms stretched above her head in red, diamond-shaped loops of nylon. Her lower body, from hips to toes, are done up the same way.

 

She looks up at him desperately, teary-eyed and confused as to why this is happening. She doesn't know that he is _the_ Steve Rogers, doesn't know that he is _Captain America_ – despite the accidental unmasking during the Chitauri attack, his identity had luckily never gotten around to the media or the public – but she had let herself assume that he was, at least, a good enough stranger to trust to lead her to bed and fuck her good.

 

She certainly could not have foreseen this change of events.

 

She even tries to scream at him, but it's muffled by the thin, black belt she had been wearing that he'd decided to gag her with. He had wanted to use her panties – problem is, she hadn't been wearing any.

 

He feels rightfully disgusted by her. She'd been wearing a _skirt_ , for goodness sake.

 

Steve puts down a row of little knives and paintbrushes and dyes. He labels the cups first, #1 through #10, before setting them up in rows of two close to the watercolor sheet.

 

“By that, I mean I became – frail – again. There was an incident and the serum that made me what I am was counteracted by a virus. I didn't react very well. I was actually in a really dark place. Do you know what made me feel better?” He doesn't bother looking up to see if she nods or not. She's still crying, mascara trailing down over the bridge of her nose and into her hair, her animal sounds of fear and panic increasing as her sinuses close up and her voice gets hoarse from trying to wail.

 

“My _mate_ did. I thought he'd leave me for sure, but he stuck by my side. He _really_ loves me, tiny or big, weak or strong.”

 

She starts screaming, and he can practically feel the scared sincerity she is trying to convey to him – that she _would_ have liked him even if he had been a tiny little shrimp she could have crushed under her stiletto heel, just as much as she had been willing to follow his six foot plus figure to her death.

 

(His reptile brain can smell her fear, her stale arousal, the _lies_ thick on her skin like her perfume. She likes him enough as he is now to fuck, but she wouldn't have given two shits about Steve from Brooklyn.)

 

He studies her from collarbone to bellybutton and chooses an excel hobby knife and cup #1.

 

The whites of her eyes show all the way around as he approaches her. She glances from his face to the knife and back again, panting, wrists and ankles chaffing against the ropes as she futilely tries to escape.

 

“You'll live longer if you don't fight as much,” he tells her matter-of-factly. “The more relaxed you are, the less you move around, the less you bleed.” He feeds her false hope, just because he _can_ and the ladies certainly had no trouble spooning it to him back in the day. “Maybe someone will find us before you die.”

 

No one will. Because _Tony_ gave him this studio, and no one just barges in. Because Tony is the only person who knows where the studio is, and Tony won't tell. He'll call first, if the world is coming to an end. Steve keeps his phone on just in case.

 

He cuts her between her full breasts and presses in deep as he slices down her ribs. He presses the cup against her skin to catch the flow of blood and smiles kindly as she screams.

 

“Well, you said you'd like for me to do a self-portrait,” he tells her, shaking his head as if this is all her fault. And it mostly is. “You shouldn't have taken me up on the offer.”

 

There isn't a whole lot he can do with deep, dark, thick red, but he manages to make cups #1 through #10 into as many different shades as he can. He has mastered it by now, actually. She's twitching and not breathing by the time he finally puts his paint brush to the paper sheet.

 

It's peaceful, he thinks.

 

( _It's more than she deserves_ , hisses his reptile brain.)

 

He paints till his colors are too congealed to spread. Then it's time for clean-up. He lets the painting set as he wraps the woman and her blood colors into a plastic tarp and rolls her out into the East River. Everything after that is bleach and mopping and repainting.

 

Carefully, he rolls the paper sheet up and sets it in the closet with five others done in mostly the same way. They're all self-portraits, their faces in those final moments before their hearts stop, faces ugly and mottled from tears and screaming, mouths bulging from whatever they have on them for him to gag them with, eyes wide and blind with terror.

 

It's pretty damning evidence, if anyone is to ever get their hands on them. He thinks he might burn them at some point so that their existence doesn't threaten him.

 

(His reptile brain doesn't like that idea at all. They're his trophies. His masterpieces. He put time and effort and risk into each and every one of them. In this way and this way alone, he can appreciate the female figure and the erratic emotions that came from being a dame in despair. They're _his_ , just like Tony, and he wouldn't give Tony up unless there was real and true danger of exposure, would he?)

 

Steve washes himself off last of all, and reluctantly scrapes off the blood that coats him from fingertip to elbow and that streaks over his face and into his hair. His clothes burn in a trash can just outside the curtain while the ventilator runs.

 

He carefully checks under his fingernails as he steps out, a new, clean man, one properly exorcised of his demons – for the moment.

 

For long enough, but not forever.

 

In a cheerful mood from a successful night, he rides his motorcycle home to the Avengers Tower and sneaks into Tony's lab. His lover ( _MATE_ ) putters away in a greasy wife beater with safety goggles pushed up into his thick, madman's hair.

 

Feeling more than a little predatory, he stalks up behind his prey and grabs him by the hips, thrusting forward against the small of his back so Tony can know just how happy and excited he is to see him again.

 

“ _Tony_ ,” he whispers into his lover's ear, pleased at the stuttered speech and pleased groan that escapes him as he leans back into Steve's chest. “How long have you been down here?”

 

“Too long,” Tony says immediately, not always but usually willing to put a stop to work if there's a promise of intimacy to be fulfilled. “Think I'm ready for a break. _Wow_ , someone's randy today, wanna tell me what put you in the mood?”

 

No.

 

Not really.

 

Not ever.

 

Steve just laughs good-naturedly and easily bends Tony over the table. Tony's hands claw into the surface and he curses a royal blue streak when Steve keeps a heavy palm on the back of his neck, not pushing him into the table as hard as he wants to, but far enough away that Tony has some space to keep from putting undue pressure on the arc reactor. He knows it's still uncomfortable for Tony, just as much as lying on his back for too long would be because of the weight of his centerpiece.

 

He digs around for concern.

 

“You don't mind, do you?” he asks innocently.

 

“ _Fuck_ , no, you _take control_ , babe. You have no idea how hot this is making me.”

 

He can see that woman in his mind, all red and open for him in a way she had never been for anyone. He had _hated_ her.

 

“I think I can guess,” he tells Tony, then shoves his jeans and boxers down to his knees and translates that hatred he had had for her into Tony's flesh and bone.

 

But he does it _tenderly_ , in a way that he doesn't grab the pocket knife next to Tony's head and slam it between his shoulder blades.

 

Because he loves Tony, and Tony isn't like the women who didn't like Steve from Brooklyn.

 

(His mate, his reptile brain reminds him with serpentine hunger, tongue flicking, sensing Tony in images of heat and red, still and waiting to devour him in a way completely but not so completely different from the dames. Tony is more precious to him alive than dead, but he still wants to paint with him.)

 

He ends up helping Tony to bed. Tony refuses to be carried, but definitely is in no shape to make the trip alone. Steve wants to properly pretend to be sorry, yet Tony refuses it before Steve can make the effort. His smile is wide and slightly manic, eyes drowsy and hazy.

 

“I didn't know you had that in you, Capsicle,” he said when Steve tumbles him into bed. He flops around till he's comfortable, arms above his head and legs stretched out with a pained groan.

 

It's a very familiar position to Steve.

 

He swallows thickly. “I think I had that coming.”

 

“I hope it comes again.”

 

Steve curls up next to Tony and traces his hand down an imaginary line that only he can see, from Tony's collarbone all the way to his bellybutton. “I, uh, actually sort of have a confession to make... Something I want to try...”

 

Tony raises a dark brow at him, looking properly debauched in their bed and willing.

 

_For Steve_ .

 

_Because of Steve_ .

 

“Oh, yeah? Captain Morality actually has a sex fantasy? Well, go on – tell the Big Bad Stark your dirty little secret.”

 

Steve smiles. “One of these times, do you, well, do you think I could... tie you up?”

 

He waits on baited breath.

 

Tony's eyes  get very dark in a very not good way. “Steve, I... I can't do bondage. I actually have reasons for this one, so just trust me – I don't like to be tied down and it's not good for me when I am.”

 

He feels betrayed, but swallows it down.

 

He still loves Tony. He just supposes that he'll have to keep some things between him and the women.

 

Tony shrugs and it's a defensive motion. “If your next fantasy has anything to do with water, you might want to just let that one go too.”

 

Six bodies floating down the East River, he remembers. He smiles reassuringly. “Water doesn't really do much for me.  It's okay , Tony. I should have known better than to ask.”

 

“It's fine. You have needs, you should want to ask. At least you _do_ ask.”

 

He kisses Tony softly. “I love you, Tony. This isn't going to make or break us. I'm a little disappointed, but we'll get past it. We'll figure out something else fun to do.” He can practically smell the cocktail mix of Tony's guilt and relief. “Just promise that you'll hear me out.”

 

Tony smiles. “Always, babe.”

 

Steve tells Tony to go to sleep, to which the genius grumbles and eventually complies.  In the quiet moments between Tony falling asleep and Steve following after, he always entertains the same line of thought, one that makes him thoughtful as he traces the circumference of the arc reactor.

 

Do Tony's scars bleed? Or would Steve have to go from ribs to bellybutton?

 

(His reptile brain hushes him. Don't plan to kill Tony when there's no need to.  _Mate_ , his mate. But, if he has to, make it the softest, gentlest, most loving death. Make it the most expressive, most beautiful self-portrait he has ever painted. Burn Tony's body to ashes so that no one else can ever delve into  him and uncover his secrets and organs, so that Steve's hands are the very last to touch him.)

 

Steve loves Tony.

 

He loves Tony very much.

 

Too much to treat like the women he hates, actually, and that is, by Steve's standards, a great deal. 

 

He still traces circles around the arc reactor, though, and imagines when the knife tip would finally draw blood while Tony watches.

 

**Author's Note:**

> More Dark!Steve, because I enjoy him and I hope you do too. Sadly, I don't feel as if I have quite pinned down his and Tony's dialogue. It's hardest for me to say what they would be likely to say. 
> 
> As always, if I am missing a tag or if you want to spread some wisdom, please do. I am always listening. Thank you and have a good night.


End file.
